The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates by Susan O’Malley

First Line: A little before 10:00am — 9:56, to be exact — Russell “Rusty” Yates’s cell phone rang in the sixth-floor Shuttle Vehicle Engineering Office he shared with three other National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) employees.

O’Malley discuses the Andrea Yates case. She goes into a lot of detail in regards to the mental illnesses that Yates suffered from. There is no doubt that this woman was severely ill. Unfortunately, things could not be straightened out for her and she instead killed her five children. This case captured the attention of the nation: what kind of a woman could kill all of her children?! And besides that, O’Malley goes into great detail about the family dynamics and how Andrea’s illness overshadowed everything. I only wish that more could have been done for this woman so that five innocent lives could have been saved. That being said, I personally did not care for this book. I remember this case going to trial and keeping up-to-date. I felt that the writing style and layout of this book was a little weak. I understand that the author had to discuss a lot of mental illness and religious matters, but I felt a little bogged down in those areas. I simply was not impressed.